


a metaphysical meeting place

by ivermectin



Series: "jenny & dan against the world" (or, the Osmosis / GG AU that NOBODY asked for) [1]
Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: (just in case someone needs that tagged), AU: Osmosis (TV 2019), Comatose Rufus Humphrey, Dan and Blair are soulmates!, Dysfunctional Families (implied), F/M, Gen, Genre: Sci-Fi (just a little), Humphrey Family Feels (but dysfunctional), I'll explain more in the notes, Lesbian Jenny Humphrey, Married Dan and Blair, Soulmates, so it's spoiler free for that show!, this doesn't have anything in it that didn't happen in the first episode of Osmosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28667676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: Blair is Osmosis, Jenny had said, so long ago.Dan and Blair; they’re Osmosis, they’re the model.In which Dan and Blair are soulmates who met because of soulmate technology, and Jenny's the person who developed the tech.A Gossip Girl AU of the TV show Osmosis.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey & Jenny Humphrey, Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Series: "jenny & dan against the world" (or, the Osmosis / GG AU that NOBODY asked for) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100960
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	a metaphysical meeting place

**Author's Note:**

> this entire thing exists because I was like "oh, the Vanhove siblings are so problematic and so terrible but also i love them both so much" and then I thought of Dan and Jenny, and I _had_ to write this. I'm pretty happy with this one - I feel like I nailed the Vibe. the sibling relationship is very much the core of both Osmosis the show and this AU that I'm writing.
> 
> yes, Blair & Dan are married! Blair & Dan in this AU are very much Joséphine & Paul, who are already married when the show starts, and share the same last name. That is why Blair in this fic is Blair Humphrey. For complicated (& spoilery) Dan-and-Jenny-and-Rufus reasons, it made sense for Blair to take Dan's name here, as opposed to hyphenating, or Dan Waldorf (yeah, I love that one, too.) 
> 
> there aren't any spoilers in this one (there _was_ one spoiler but I managed to edit it out. such self-control, much wow.) I'll probably write more (I've got ideas for the entire show!) 
> 
> lastly: Joséphine is a dancer. I figured it'd make more sense to make Blair an actress, because, well, she's _Blair_. If I had to give her a performing art, acting would totally be it (I feel like that's more true to her character.)

In the wings of the stage, down at the local theatre, Blair Humphrey flips through her script of Heartbreak House. She’s been cast as Ellie Dunn, which, as she’d been telling Dan, was a _dream role in a dream production, really, Dan. There’s so much I can do as her, I’ve got the whole complicated romantic woman thing down to a notch._

Dan had given her that look; the intense, soft, nakedly adoring look. _Of course, you got the part, Blair,_ he’d told her. He’d put a hand on her chin, traced a circle around her cheek with his thumb, all warm and comforting and supportive. _You’re going to be brilliant. I love you._

 _Oh, so you don’t care, seeing your wife flirt with other men?_ Blair had teased, sticking her tongue out. And Dan had laughed, said, _it doesn’t matter whether you flirt or not, Blair, people will fall in love with you anyway. I’m lucky you’re here with me._

They’d fallen asleep facing each other, and Blair had woken up, the memory of his big brown doe-like eyes fresh in her mind. She had practice again today, and Dan had the corporate thing with Jenny – explaining Osmosis to the beta testers, getting them to sign consent forms, all of that, and she hadn’t wanted to wake him up earlier than needed, so she’d quickly written a love letter on a post-it, mostly a wish for good luck, and stuck it on her pillow before leaving.

Now, though, a lot of her optimism has faded away. The director’s pushing the whole crew, and he’s making all of them go over their lines again and again. They’re still on Act 1, and Blair thinks that it’s a good thing she spent so much of high school practicing her faces in the mirror, widening her eyes like a porcelain doll.

“Humphrey, do those lines again,” the director says. Blair resists the urge to roll her eyes, annoyed at being stopped halfway through the scene.

Still, as requested, she says, “Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He took the chair one night at a sort of people’s concert. I was singing there… as an amateur, you know; half a guinea for expenses and three songs with three encores.” She pauses ever so slightly, and then goes on. “He was so pleased with my singing that he asked might he walk home with me.”

“No, no, stop. The flow’s a little off, there. Do you think you could say it, you know – a little more naturally?”

Blair exhales, nods. “Just give me a minute to go over the script, though?” she requests.

She excuses herself and stands in the wings, trying to get back some of the confidence she’d so casually and excitedly shared with Dan. When she’d been cast, she’d shown him the script, and they’d both marked it up, and she looks at it now, her highlighter and his, their notes in the margins, the bits of analysis that both of them couldn’t resist defacing her script with. It makes her smile.

Blair knows that she _can_ get the feeling of confidence and control back, she knows that Dan believes in her. As a reminder, she presses her fingers against the glowing part of her wrist, the implant under skin the one thing that connects him to her and her to him, always and forever.

Somewhere else – in the office, undoubtedly, looking at logistics and finances for the beta testers – Dan smiles, gently pressing two fingers back to the glowing orb at the centre of his left wrist. It pulses out, filling the two of them with warmth, the feeling of a flower blooming, the first ray of sunlight, a cup of warm tea on a cold day, being able to hold hands with a lover. Telepathically, the two of them are holding hands, somewhere else, in a space far away, a metaphysical meeting place.

The moment passes, and Blair puts her script away. Rejuvenated, she goes back on stage. This time, she nails it in one shot.

*

The meeting goes as Jenny expects it to.

Dan’s totally in his element, Jenny’s preoccupied, letting him take charge and explain. She’s already called a cab, ready to leave as soon as she can. She feels slightly guilty, since she’s already late to the meeting, and Dan’s gaze is heavy, almost accusatory.

 _Where were you_ , he seems to be asking.

 _Having lesbian sex over cyberspace using rival technology that we’re trying to outdo_ was obviously not the answer Dan wanted to hear, but it was the truth. So Jenny just shrugged.

Osmosis had worked for Dan, really worked. It’d found him true love, found him Blair, the love of his life, and that had given Dan the certainty and faith and confidence in the whole thing, the knowledge that Osmosis had the power to do that for other people; to find them partners who they’d be extraordinarily compatible with – their soulmates.

 _Blair is Osmosis,_ Jenny had said, so long ago. _Dan and Blair; they’re Osmosis, they’re the model._

Jenny was the one who’d named it Osmosis, though. It’d been a joke, or something along those lines. She’d been talking to Dan about how she’d done it, and she’d said, “I don’t know, it’s like, synergy?”

Dan had given her an unimpressed look. “That sounds too boring, Jen. Can’t you give it a cooler name?”

“Fine, fine, you oaf,” Jenny had said, laughing, swatting at him with a hand. “How about Osmosis?”

“I like that,” Dan had said, sounding almost surprised. “Let’s keep it.”

“It’s scientifically not the best term,” Jenny had said, but Dan wasn’t a scientist. He was a writer, though now he was also a businessman. He cared more about how pretty the word sounded than about how biologists and botanists would feel about it.

Jenny had just gotten her brother back. She’d have named the mechanism whatever he wanted, just to see him happy.

Right now, though, Dan isn’t very happy.

“Listen, I _have_ to go,” Jenny’d whispered, as he’d pulled her aside.

Dan had taken one look at her, and his expression had gone cold.

“You were late getting here, and you’ve been here less than fifteen minutes,” he pointed out. And then, figuring it out immediately, “You’re going to check on Dad.”

Her expression went cold, too. “Someone has to,” she’d said, bitter. _And you never do_ , she didn’t say. “I already called the cab.”

Dan scowls as she leaves.

She doesn’t pay him any attention. She knows it’s difficult for him, too. They both deal with the current Rufus situation in their own ways.

Dan can keep being sad all he wants. Jenny’s going to _fix_ it.

*

The world feels like too much sometimes, but Dan’s become very adept at pushing all the things he doesn’t want at the forefront of his mind far away.

He does the rest of the orientation at Osmosis the way he has to. And then he attends a board meeting, where all the executives tell him coldly that they won’t sponsor Osmosis unless Dan steps down from being the CEO and gives the position to somebody else.

Dan doesn’t trust it to anybody else. People who use Osmosis are trusting the agency with the most intimate details, with access to their _brains._ He isn’t going to let anyone else call the shots, because he doesn’t trust them.

He’s seen all the things that can go wrong, after all. He doesn’t believe too much in the inherent goodness of people.

Dan’s had his own close brushes with some of it – the only reason he’s in control of his own life is Jenny. Jenny, the mastermind, the scientist, the force behind it all.

Dan had two choices: give up, or trust Jenny. There had never really been much question regarding what he was going to do.

He thinks about the origin of Osmosis. He thinks about Rufus – about how Jenny’s trying to save Rufus, even if it means destroying herself.

He’s not particularly religious, but he gives himself a single solitary moment to pray.

*

“Hey, Dad,” Jenny says, in the bleak and empty hospital room.

Rufus is lying in the bed, all plugged in. His vitals are as dismal as ever; no change from last time.

It’s been like this ever since Jenny was fifteen. Everything was fine, perfect, and then – Rufus in a coma. She’d spent the evening reading up on the Glasgow Coma Scale, and then checked his vitals, talked to the nurses, put it all together. Dan had held her close as they doctors had finalized the diagnosis. He’d told her that they’d make it through this. That they’d make it through anything, through everything. She’d always have him, he’d said to her. They were Jenny and Dan. It was the two of them against the world.

Jenny understands why Dan doesn’t want to see Rufus, she really does. Of course it hurts, to see their father like this, eyes either entirely closed or empty and blank when they’re opened. The brain scans are all the same – irreversible, unchangeable. The doctors all say the same thing – recovery rate: zero percent.

She’s Jenny Humphrey, though. She doesn’t give up. She powers up Agnes, her artificial intelligence, and gets out the data she’s prepared for this, plays the music, carefully inputs it to her father’s brain with expert precision.

It’s a nice memory – Dan and Jenny, Jenny giggling while Rufus instructs Dan, _look after your sister, Dan,_ and then, Dan’s there, his arms around her, the two of them laughing, ever so young, the whole world in their hands. She’s six, he’s eight, but he takes being her elder brother so, so seriously.

Rufus is smiling at the two of them, Dan’s looking at Jenny, and they’re a happy family. Jenny knows they’re a happy family – she knows that the last time they really fit together was earlier, back _then_ , Dan and Jenny and their dad, the abundance of waffles, the warm laughter, and they loved each other so much.

There’s not much that’s perfect in her life, not really, but the memory of her family keeps her going.

It doesn’t work. Jenny hadn’t expected it to, but it stings, anyway. She instructs Agnes to do some new scans, puts her head in her hands, takes deep breaths.

She knows exactly what she’s missing, and she also knows that there’s one specific way to get it.

It’s wrong. It’s unforgivable. She’s not going to do it. There’s got to be another way. ( _there is no other way._ ) She’ll keep trying.

*

“Why don’t you ever use Osmosis?” Dan had asked Jenny, once. “What I have with Blair – you could… you could have that with someone, too.”

“I don’t want that with anyone.” Jenny had tossed her head, given Dan a small smile. Her blonde hair had caught the light eerily, making her seem almost like a siren.

Sometimes it makes Dan want to laugh – the knowledge that his little sister has grown up much fiercer and more intimidating than Dan himself.

“I already have you,” she'd said, wrapping an arm around Dan. “And Dad. I don’t need anyone else.”

Dan had swallowed, feeling like someone was twisting a knife in his chest. “Yeah,” he’d said, quietly.

*

When Blair gets back from the theatre group, she can already tell just by Dan’s posture, by the way he’s standing there in their dimly lit kitchen, looking like he has a headache, that he’s tearing himself up over something.

“Dan,” she says, soft.

He hums, not even turning around to face her.

She walks up to him, loops her arms around his waist.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, the right mix of gentle and firm.

Dan looks up at her. He looks impossibly tired, but worried. She leans forward, kisses the crease in his brow, waits for him to answer.

“Today was the day we were discussing terms and conditions with the beta testers,” Dan says.

Blair nods, waiting for him to get to it.

“Jenny,” Dan swallows. “She left in the middle. She went – went to see Dad.”

Blair’s hand finds his lower back, and she presses her fingers against him. It doesn’t solve anything, but she can tell from the way his shoulders shift that some of the tension leaves his body.

“This isn’t new, though,” Blair points out. “It’s not the first time. Or the second time. Or the third, even. What’s different this time?”

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep watching,” Dan admits. “It’s going to hurt if she succeeds at her attempts, which – nobody _can_. But Jen’s done the impossible before, if _anyone_ can, it’s her. Either she succeeds, and then…. and then the truth comes out. Or she fails, and she keeps going, and she fails again, and again, and. It’s taking a toll on her, Blair. I’m worried.”

“If it bothers you that much, you should tell Jenny the truth,” Blair advises. She knows already that Dan is going to say no, and it’s not her place to interfere with Dan and Jenny’s issues. _Jenny can handle it,_ Blair wants to say. _Jenny’s a strong person._

Dan shakes his head, looking as if doing so pains him deeply. “I can’t,” he says, sounding like the words hurt him to say. Blair understands – she’d heard it all from Dan once, and he’d nearly fallen apart, letting her in. “You of all people know why I can’t.”

And this is true. The worst case scenario is that this shatters both Dan and Jenny. Blair hates it though; hates that Dan’s protective of Jenny to the extent where he’s ready to carry the weight of something so awful all by himself.

“I love you,” she says, which doesn’t fix anything, but it does make him smile, even though he still looks so sad. She kisses his cheek, runs her fingers through his curls. “I love you so much, Dan. And so does Jenny. She’s lucky to have you.”

“ _I’m_ lucky to have her,” Dan corrects softly. “Plus, she’s the reason I have _you_.”

Blair wraps her arms around Dan, cradles him in a hug. Her heels give her enough height that it’s not as awkward as it could be, but Dan leans down a little anyway, curling into her. She massages patterns against his back, holds him while he’s shaking.

And she looks at the ceiling of their shared kitchen, and tries not to feel so damn _guilty._

**Author's Note:**

> anyway! if you can watch Osmosis and are so inclined, you SHOULD. here's a message i sent to one of my friends recommending it to him - " _it's like black mirror, only less sad / pessimistic?? it's got everything... tender gay men in love with heaps of angst, sci fi vibes, badass STEM lady (who gives me the biggest aro vibes in the world), moral ambiguity and you being confused who to root for, family secrets, very interesting characters, romance! betrayal! artificial intelligence!_ "
> 
> it's a pretty short show as well, it's just 8 episodes, and it was cancelled after season 1, but it ends well enough that you can make your peace with that.
> 
> bonus: Hugo Becker (who played Louis Grimaldi) plays Paul Vanhove. and. he's such a good actor??? I was really swept away by his performance in this. Also, me being me, I didn't actually recognise him at first. so I watched all 8 episodes, and then looked him up, and was like, _what?!?!_ because that man was TALENTED, and GG should've given him a more nuanced character to play than that prince, whose personality was literally CARDBOARD.
> 
> i'm @ bisexualdanhumphrey on tumblr if you want to say hi (but I bet you knew that already.)  
> future installments in this series WILL have spoilers for the show, but I will tag everything! <3


End file.
